Why isn’t Sarah running?

posted at 4:00 pm on February 12, 2012 by J.E. Dyer

I’ll take a crack at it. Her CPAC speech today was a barn-burner, hitting every conservative, small-government point and pumping out soundbites that will no doubt resonate in the public dialogue for days to come. Some of my favorites:

“Drain the Jacuzzi!”

“This government isn’t too big to fail, it’s too big to succeed.”

“We don’t want an economy built to last, we want an economy built to grow.”

“This is Obama’s Washington.”

I wonder, however, if one of the points she hammered throughout the speech really registered with her audience. Her signature line in this speech was “The door is open.” She meant that political conditions are becoming conducive to a renewed commitment to small government and liberty. People’s mindsets are changing. We are not governed by the “rules” of political seasons past; the door is open to choosing our candidates and charting our nation’s future on a different basis. The door is open to not accepting a continuation of the false compromises of previous decades.

I have referred to those false compromises – “compromises” in which the conservative, small-government side gave up virtually everything – as the “old consensus.” I see it losing, bit by bit, in this primary season. People are no longer obediently making their political choices within the parameters defined for them by the professional political class.

This doesn’t mean that the voters have ideal candidates with whom to make their statement against the old consensus. Santorum and Gingrich both have their drawbacks, as Paul always has. But a critical mass of voters has recognized that Romney is the old consensus, and they are rejecting it. The CPAC vote was remarkable for Romney’s 38% — because it wasn’t bigger, because Santorum got 31%, and even Gingrich, in a conclave of the politically connected, got 15%.

Everyone outpolled Ron Paul at CPAC, even though he has regularly won the CPAC vote in the past. This signals a change in the mindset of politically active conservatives – not merely a new perspective that it’s overwhelmingly important to defeat Obama, but a perspective that the core of the conservative movement is shifting, and we need a serious mainstream candidate because it is a life-or-death matter to be effective in the political process.

That obviously doesn’t mean the CPAC voters think we need a “moderate,” leadership- and media-approved candidate. If it did, they would have gone for Romney, rather than voting 46% for the mainstream candidates who are not Romney – and who are perceived, in many if not all cases correctly, as less satisfied with and enthusiastically “managerial” about the matter of big government.

But the point to take away is that voter sentiment, as it relates to the meaning of different candidates and the basis of government, is changing.

And that, I think, is about half the reason why Sarah Palin didn’t throw her hat in the ring for this campaign cycle. Her evaluation of political conditions is remarkably accurate and prescient: she saw, long before most of the voters did, that the game of expectations itself needed to change, and that only we could do it.

What strategic value was there for Palin in participating in the Cynical Media Slime-fest and All-Out Kick-em-in-the-Nads, mud-slinging, business-as-usual, expectations-on-autopilot primary season?

Six or eight months ago, the sea change in the voters’ sentiments and propensities might have been foreseeable, but it hadn’t happened yet. Those who think Palin could have won lots of primaries on the basis of pre-primary voter sentiments are wrong, I think. After all, the business-as-usual approach – Karl Rove tells everyone how bad a candidate is, the media magnify his or her every quirk or mistake, the media and some (not all) of the other candidates pile on with allegations that range from hostile spin to outright falsehood – has so far felled our most conservative candidates.

But in the process, the voters have been changing. That’s what Palin saw before others did. Do I think she is counting the days to a brokered convention? No. There is no one who could reasonably adopt that as a “plan.” She won’t run this year; that’s my rational assessment as well as my gut feeling. (I could of course be wrong, although I think some big conditions will have to change more for that to be the case.)

But if she does run, it will not be because she has changed, but because we have. There are political conditions in which she could run successfully, and conditions in which she couldn’t. The latter have constituted our political environment up until the last couple of months.

If the conditions are changing now, I believe that is largely because voters are having to wise up to the flaws in our own thinking by going through this ugly spectacle. We already knew that the media have no intention of giving our candidates a fair shake, and that many in the GOP leadership want to submarine the small-government conservatives. What many voters didn’t understand is that if we want to select leaders of character, we have to graduate from high school, and overlook the vicissitudes of “presentation” that sometimes make good people look like buffoons to those who see without humility, mercy, or discrimination. We have to see with better eyes. We have to think independently of the jeers embedded in the media narrative. We have to be wiser citizens, placing in political leadership only the hope that is appropriate to free men and women.

We can’t have a candidate who sounds like Mitt Romney, but will lead the way a small-government conservative would. That’s not an option. What we’re doing in this primary season is coming to grips with that reality. I think Palin knew instinctively that we would have to, before it would make sense for her to jump back into the electoral fray.

But, as I said, I think that’s only about half the explanation. The other half is that Palin is an evangelical Christian. She believes God has a plan for her life, and that He gives her a certainty in her spirit about the big choices she has to make. I suspect she has had a peaceful certainty that joining the campaign as a candidate for 2012 was not something she should do. If she were to analyze it, she might say that God knows better than any of us how the voters’ concerns and expectations are going to change.

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“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams

I would suggest that one of the main reasons Sarah Palin did not run was because she did not want to put her family through another vicious campaign. Sarah announced she was not running shortly after her daughter Bristol was almost physically accosted by a virulent liberal in a Los Angeles western bar while filming a reality spot. A guy in his forties or fifties felt justified in getting the face of a nineteen year old girl to scream foul-mouthed insults at her about her mother in public, just because he didn’t like her mother’s politics.

This is how they knocked Sarah out of the running, not by arguing about her ideas or her political record, but by insulting, belittling and attacking her minor children in every way possible. Letterman told a sex joke about her 13 year old daughter Willow on his show. Maher and others made mocking jokes about her infant son with special needs, Trig. Andrew Sullivan, who is celebrated by the left, pushed a conspiracy theory that her Trig what not really Sarah’s son, but really her daughter Bristol’s son. Others called Bristol Palin a tramp and a whore on network TV. A reporter even moved into the house next door to to the Palins so he could peek in her windows, and the windows of her children.

No other politician in American history has had their minor children attacked, ridiculed, belittled and insulted, – sometimes with salacious sex jokes, by national figures. And the liberal media just laughed along and fed the flames.

To the modern left, decency has become an alien and inconvenient concept. This is why the left has to be defeated.

I don’t want “better than Obama.” I want someone who will follow the goddam constitution. Don’t you understand that? We are a nation of f**king constitutional illiterates, and I’m supposed to feel hunky-dory about someone who’s “better than Obama?” Ostensibly someone who doesn’t actively abhor America, but is so constitutionally illiterate as to not even know what following the constitution really means?!

Christ almighty, we are doomed.

We are actually a nation of illiterates, period. But that doesn’t solve your first issue. The only thing that does is simplifying elections for them by saying bad things about the other guy, getting elected, and pushing for incremental change. The Ron Paul approach will simply never be accepted in this country.

We are actually a nation of illiterates, period. But that doesn’t solve your first issue. The only thing that does is simplifying elections for them by saying bad things about the other guy, getting elected, and pushing for incremental change. The Ron Paul approach will simply never be accepted in this country.

milcus on February 12, 2012 at 9:01 PM

…which is why I am not voting for that neo-anarchist scumbag in the primaries either. I have a very specific vision for America, and I can tell you right here and now, “Get rid of Barack Obama” is just the first step of several in how it could be achieved.

All you anti-Palin posters can really bring the hate and personal attacks but when it comes to answering a very simple question you have failed. What policies of Gov. Palin do you disagree with? Such intelligent and deep thinkers must have an answer to that one.

…which is why I am not voting for that neo-anarchist scumbag in the primaries either. I have a very specific vision for America, and I can tell you right here and now, “Get rid of Barack Obama” is just the first step of several in how it could be achieved.

gryphon202 on February 12, 2012 at 9:04 PM

Trust be told, I am not disagreeing with you.

You just seem to not want Romney because he doesn’t get us there in 2013. I think Romney is best because he is that 1st step. Defeating Obama stops the insanity. And if Romney is even a decent President, i.e. better than GWB, he sets us up nicely for 2020, when Republicans can nominate Rubio or Ryan, and finally take a stand against the direction progressives have nudged this country in over the last 100 years.

Very nice take on it, J. E. I hope you are correct, because we are at the point in this country where only a great change in perceptions by the citizenry can save us from a slow (but ever faster) decline and collapse into the second-rate Euro-welfare society.

And in the end, ‘democracy’ will mean no moer here than it ever did in any other ‘People’s Demokratik Republik’.

You just seem to not want Romney because he doesn’t get us there in 2013. I think Romney is best because he is that 1st step. Defeating Obama stops the insanity. And if Romney is even a decent President, i.e. better than GWB, he sets us up nicely for 2020, when Republicans can nominate Rubio or Ryan, and finally take a stand against the direction progressives have nudged this country in over the last 100 years.

milcus on February 12, 2012 at 9:08 PM

I don’t want Romney because I don’t trust him to follow the constitution. Period. In fact, I am pretty certain he won’t. You don’t have to be the second coming of LBJ or use the constituion like toilet paper (as Barack Obama does) in order to just ignore it out of sheer ignorance. And there is NOT a single thing in Mitt Romney’s record to make me think that he will abide by the constitution. NOTHING. There are plenty of his agenda items that make me think he won’t. So we’ll have to chalk it up to a difference of opinion.

OH, PLEASE! Just cut it out! Palin is the worst possible candidate. She’s a joke to independents and intelligent conservatives have to question her decision to resign from her governorship before completing her term. She can give all the great speeches she wants; that doesn’t change the fact that she’s a quitter.

I don’t want Romney because I don’t trust him to follow the constitution. Period. In fact, I am pretty certain he won’t. You don’t have to be the second coming of LBJ or use the constituion like toilet paper (as Barack Obama does) in order to just ignore it out of sheer ignorance. And there is NOT a single thing in Mitt Romney’s record to make me think that he will abide by the constitution. NOTHING. There are plenty of his agenda items that make me think he won’t. So we’ll have to chalk it up to a difference of opinion.

gryphon202 on February 12, 2012 at 9:10 PM

Again, I am not sure how you can draw that conclusion, but we will have to agree to disagree regarding that.

You continue to misunderstand me. We are living in perilous times of great change, times in which the normal rules apply less and less.

The Republican National Convention does not even begin until August 27. That’s over six months away. Six months in Obama’s Orwellian world of mischief is a long, long time. Best be prepared to expect the unexpected.

Moron, do you even understand what happened. Alaska has a laws that the public offical sued has to pay their own lawyer defense. So after her VP run, democrats brought 23 friviolus lawsuits against. All of them she eventually won. However, the total cost to her was $625,000.. She as governor was making $125,000 & Todd at the time was making $75,000.. Obama and the democrats were bankrupting her family.

She did the most couragious thing possible, she gave up power and the govership for the sake of her family. Them she got the last laught making tens of millions after the resignation, leading the GOP to a historic mid term election that got Obama’s tools beat and ultimately being the national figure she is today.

Your left wing/Romneycare crap is expected. You fear her. The better she does (yesterday’s speech) the more venom your kind sells.

Her evaluation of political conditions is remarkably accurate and prescient: she saw, long before most of the voters did, that the game of expectations itself needed to change, and that only we could do it.

I agree! The blame for her prescient actions do not fall on her. The blame falls squarely on the LAZY, IGNORANT, SOUND BITE SUCKING, EASILY FOOLED Americans [*], and [*]the democrat evaluation of these voters remains spot on.

You just seem to not want Romney because he doesn’t get us there in 2013. I think Romney is best because he is that 1st step. Defeating Obama stops the insanity. And if Romney is even a decent President, i.e. better than GWB, he sets us up nicely for 2020, when Republicans can nominate Rubio or Ryan, and finally take a stand against the direction progressives have nudged this country in over the last 100 years.

milcus on February 12, 2012 at 9:08 PM

Romney is a big-government liberal like Obama, so how is he going to be a decent president if Obama is a horrible one? And if we elect Romney, we have to wait another eight years before we can finally nominate a halfway palatable candidate “and finally take a stand against the direction progressives have nudged this country in over the last 100 years”?

Wow, such a deal. I might as well vote for Obama because he’s only got FOUR more years. At least the Democrats aren’t pretending to plan on someday rolling up their sleeves and “finally taking a stand against the direction progressives have nudged this country in over the last 100 years” when conditions are finally right at some point years into the future. At least with the Democrats, you aren’t under any illusion that they’re going to do anything about the coming collapse.

Say what you will for Mitt Romney (or Perry, Cain, Bachmann, etc), at least he is willing to do what it takes. Palin quit on her Alaska job, quite on her bus tour, and quit on running….well, she never actually started running for president, just gave the impression she would, then flipped the finger at all her supporters the day after doing a fund raiser.

They screwed up in 2008, yet they redeemed themselves in 2010. They have a chance to redeem themselves in 2012 again. If they make the effort, they deserve something better than Obama.

milcus on February 12, 2012 at 8:46 PM

They redeemed themselves by challenging established RINO’s and voting them out of office. They did not redeem themselves by choosing the safest thing. Romney is not a sure thing any more than any of the others. Romney wants to be President because he wants to be President. He doesn’t think things are all that bad, so he has no reason to be bold in turning things around. He just plain doesn’t get it, and I for one am not willing to go down without a fight.

You know who walked right up to running for president but chickened out? Mitch Daniels. You know who did in fact run but chickened out because Michele Bachmann was too scary? Pawlenty. Go whine about them for a while. Oh, I forgot: no one really cares what they has to say.

Say what you will for Mitt Romney (or Perry, Cain, Bachmann, etc), at least he is willing to do what it takes. Palin quit on her Alaska job, quite on her bus tour, and quit on running….well, she never actually started running for president, just gave the impression she would, then flipped the finger at all her supporters the day after doing a fund raiser.

William Teach on February 12, 2012 at 9:23 PM

Mitt Romney is a useless narcissist who just wants power.

It’s amazing to me how someone who willingly steps down from power is considered a “quitter” — but someone who spends close to a decade running for President, runs almost no ads at all trying to sell himself to voters, runs almost no ads at all that aren’t attacks on other Republicans, has won only five out of twenty-plus elections in his career, and lasted only a single term as a much-reviled governor of Massachusetts, is someone who “is willing to do what it takes,” which I guess is supposed to be to his credit.

I swear, Palin haters think of politics as a freaking game in which the object is to get and hold political office for as long as possible. I guess if that’s how you think of politics, then yeah, I can see how resigning voluntarily might be considered to be the equivalent of just walking off the field and abandoning your teammates in the middle of a big game. But not all of us think of politics as a game.

Watch me. I’ll vote for every other race, but if the GOP insists on nominating Romney they have pretty much admitted that I don’t matter except to get in line at vote time, and I don’t accept that.

alwaysfiredup on February 12, 2012 at 8:57 PM

Stop lying. You are not fooling anyone. You will vote for him whether you like it or not. You might be upset now however you will fall in line on election day.

Uppereastside on February 12, 2012 at 9:05 PM

Dude, did you even check into the numbers why Pappy Bush, Dole & McCain didn’t win, or why Dubya almost lost? It was due to enough conservatives sitting on their hands when it came time to vote. In my case, I wasn’t going to vote for Dubya until the Donks threw in their Oct surprise and how he handled it that made me change my mind. All the other cases, it was the down-ticket candidates that got my vote and Perot that got my vote. Again with McVain, I had to hold my nose and vote for him.

I’m through holding my nose and I refuse to accept the notion that we are forever stuck with a two-party system of GOP & Donks. If the GOP refuses to nominate a conservative, then they must accept the fact that I won’t vote for their favored son. Sooner or later they will pay the price.

But rest assured, this November, I WILL vote FOR a credible conservative, even if I have to write-in Sarah. The sooner that other disaffected conservatives realize that we don’t have to play by the rules spelled out the GOP establishment, the sooner we can begin to drain out the jacuzzi. Otherwise, we’re just like the abused spouse, all lovey-dovey during the election and once they get our vote, it’s back to the same-old, same-old trashing of our values.

And yes, the GOP establishment is part of the problem. Just look at the rare occasions where term-limits were approved by the voters. Who were the duly elected representatives that pushed back and overturned the limits? Ours truly, the affected representatives.

As for long-term fixes, once we get control of both houses, we need to push for a constitutional amendment to repeal the 17th. The FF intended for the Senate to represent the State Governments, not the people, that’s what the House of Representatives are for.

Danielvito on February 12, 2012 at 9:20 PM
They probably had quite a debt to pay off. Probably one of the reasons for the mini series gig.

wi farmgirl on February 12, 2012 at 9:24 PM

I am tired of people putting that show down as a reality TV show. My ten year old and I were actually able to watch something interesting that didn’t involve me having to explain some sort of sex act. It was more of a travelogue type thing in my opinion.

I have a question for you haters. It is obvious that your heart is filled with hate, that much is quite easy to see, just read your own post’s on this thread. The larger question is with Sarah Palin taking up all that room inside your head, where do you store the brain cells? Oh, wait……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Never mind. Thanks for all the comments though. I just know with your help we can get to 1000 here shortly. So come haters do what you do, the only thing you do, Hate!

Watch me. I’ll vote for every other race, but if the GOP insists on nominating Romney they have pretty much admitted that I don’t matter except to get in line at vote time, and I don’t accept that.

alwaysfiredup on February 12, 2012 at 8:57 PM

I did this in our governor race last time. Sam Brownback sold us pro-life people out when he voted to confirm Kathleen Sibelius, personal friend of and campaign donation recipient of George Tiller, 3rd trimester abortionist, for HHS secretary. I will never vote for him again, and I will never vote for Pat Roberts again either, for the same reason.

Oh that’ll be just great. We default, every other country in the world decides to dump dollars wholesale-writ-large as a reserve currency, and we suffer the worst hyperinflation the world has ever seen as people riot for bread and water to survive on. That’s real leverage, J.E./

But, as I said, I think that’s only about half the explanation. The other half is that Palin is an evangelical Christian. She believes God has a plan for her life, and that He gives her a certainty in her spirit about the big choices she has to make. I suspect she has had a peaceful certainty that joining the campaign as a candidate for 2012 was not something she should do. If she were to analyze it, she might say that God knows better than any of us how the voters’ concerns and expectations are going to change.

Seriously? This analysis bugs the heck out of me. All that’s missing is an illustration of St. Sarah with a halo riding a unicorn.

If the conditions are changing now, I believe that is largely because voters are having to wise up to the flaws in our own thinking by going through this ugly spectacle. We already knew that the media have no intention of giving our candidates a fair shake, and that many in the GOP leadership want to submarine the small-government conservatives.

Oh please! Nobody wants to submarine small guv conservatives. The time is not right because we don’t hold the Senate and White House. But I do agree it is turning into an “ugly spectacle”. Yep, nothing like urging voters to Rage At The Machine and give a non-endorsement endorsement to Newt Gingrich and The Occupiers.

What many voters didn’t understand is that if we want to select leaders of character, we have to graduate from high school, and overlook the vicissitudes of “presentation” that sometimes make good people look like buffoons to those who see without humility, mercy, or discrimination. We have to see with better eyes. We have to think independently of the jeers embedded in the media narrative. We have to be wiser citizens, placing in political leadership only the hope that is appropriate to free men and women.

In a word: Dreck.

Good night all. I’m not going to bother to stick around and wait for the brilliant responses of MidwestBarbiePrincess and her sidekick, Bitter Clinger, and others too numerous to mention….

Thanks for posting that. Also, when the Tuscon shooting took place, no one in the GOP establishment came to her defense, she was left alone, to twist in the wind. Why? Because she is a conservative. They know she fights corruption no matter where it is.

Is there anything worth watching on that anymore? Do they run Looney Tunes at all? We only get the free broadcast channels and there might be a couple hours worth of cartoons worth a hoot…in an entire WEEK.

Is there anything worth watching on that anymore? Do they run Looney Tunes at all? We only get the free broadcast channels and there might be a couple hours worth of cartoons worth a hoot…in an entire WEEK.

MelonCollie on February 12, 2012 at 10:13 PM

I don’t know, we don’t watch it anymore. We got rid of cable over the summer. My daughter is twelve now and she’s not into teen angst shows. She’s been watching Dr. Who on Netflix.

Thanks for posting that. Also, when the Tuscon shooting took place, no one in the GOP establishment came to her defense, she was left alone, to twist in the wind. Why? Because she is a conservative. They know she fights corruption no matter where it is.

Ahh! Therein lies the rub. Sarah Palin represents a clear and present danger to the entrenched powers that be. Hence she had to be marginalized from the outset, only the marginalization didn’t work out quite like they planned. When it comes to the conservative base, especially the amorphous Tea Party, Palin calls the tune, whether the GOPE likes or not. Her thunderous reception at CPAC2012 should quell any doubts otherwise.

As to liking the cut of my jib, when sailing I prefer using a apinnaker so I can ride with the wind. Also spinnakers are colorful, and I like bold colors.

.
You would have never had a 2010 Shellacking of the democrites if Sarah stayed as a Gov. in AK- and anytime you want to shut up a libturd trashing Palin- just remind them of the 2010 Palin inspired. Their donkeys- with short memories.
And we owe her for doing what she did for the mid-terms.

Sarah Palin has not entered the race because it would be obvious at the first debate that she does not have the knowledge base to debate any of the four who are left. Her image would be destroyed in a Rick Perry minute.

It would be better to vote for Romney with a finger on the primary challenge trigger that to sit this one out. After all, Reagan had a go at Ford. And let us not forget stopping the Harriet Miers nomination, one fine moment in conservative history.

I really find the trolls that hit Sarah Palin for “Quitting” the Governorship of Alaska to be complete dumbasses. I watched as Romney was Governor in Massachusetts and spent years 3 and 4 campaigning all over the country. He left the state in the very capable hands of his Lt. Governor Kerry Healey but he wasn’t present. Then when she ran for the Governorship he didn’t endorse her. Bastard! Serious character flaw. Somehow he doesn’t get tarred as the “Quitter” but she does? Of course their hero BHO never quit anything – he never had a real job until the Presidency and he has been MIA for most of that. They think he is brilliant because he can read from a teleprompter – I guess if you have trouble reading that looks brilliant but to most folks that is just walking around sense. Crap he even screws that up – Corps/corpse. Sarah has predicted and prescribed, consistently on target, every issue for the last 3 years. She would be an awesome President – head and shoulders above all the current field and miles above BHO.

Jailbreak is a sick person that should be locked up. You would think Sarah Palin killed Jailbreak’s family with their psychotic postings and Chudi is just a mental midget crackbaby, but Jailbreak is one disturbed nutcase. If Allah posts one more Palin thread maybe Jailbreak and Chudi can go Trig Truther on us as well. Please, Allah. Show us that the Romneybots are Trig Truthers as well. I actually saw a Romneybot at race42012 that was a Trig Truther I wonder if it was Jailbreak, Chudi, or csdeven.

I don’t know if it’s any longer this way but when I was in high school, the girls with reputations could never seem to understand why the “good girls” always got married first.Cleombrotus on February 12, 2012 at 9:08 PM

.
The small town I live in could be nicknamed “Tortooga”.

There are so few “good girls” around where I live that they aren’t noticed. They keep quietly to themselves.

My two son’s have both given me grandchildren, out-of-wedlock, so I guess that makes me as bad as Sarah Palin.

I do not blame Palin for resigning in the face of unwarranted ethics complaints which she was forced to defend at her own expense. Palin did the right thing for herself and her family by quitting.

The attacks on Palin after the Tucson shootings were unconscionable and the failure of the conservative media and Republicans to defend her from the blood libel was execrable and a sad day in America. I don’t blame her for being pi$$ed. It is fully warranted.

That being said, her support for Freddie Mac Gingrich betrays her at the very least as not knowledgeable or cynical and her support for a brokered convention is clueless, unprincipled and impractical, as is her wish for the nominating process to go on.

The best interest of the GOP require that the nominating process end ASAP and the party rally around the one person with the education and work history needed to defeat Obama on the issue that concerns ordinary Americans more than any other issue: the economy.

I’ve had an idea for a while that many Romney supporters don’t really give a damn what happens after Inauguration Day as long as Romney wins.

Aitch748 on February 12, 2012 at 8:47 PM

This country’s well on its way to becoming Greece. I’m all for anyone who can stop that trajectory which is all I care about in the end. In that department, Romney passes muster. Do you appreciate what’s truly at stake if we don’t go with somebody that can appeal to independents? Given the danger we’re in on the present course, why would you be taking reckless chances with someone like Newt or Santorum–or Bachmann or Cain for that matter? Right now the Romney-hate strikes me as irrational–and it’s so far been very destructive to our party’s chances in the fall.

The bottom line is Romney’s a conservative, despite his imperfect record. He balanced a state budget. He cut taxes. He vetoed embryonic stem cell research. He fought against gay marriage. That’s his record. Yeah, he was for Romneycare–but it should be enough that he has pledged to repeal Obamacare. Everything else speaks to his executive experience and competence as a conservative governor.

Time to stop bellyaching and creating problems where none exist. None of it makes sense. You know the drill–he’s wooden, he’s a milquetoast, he’s mean, he’s evil, he’s the wrong religion, he’s boring, he’s a Ken doll. The truth is he’s none of that. He’s a clean-living guy who’s smart and articulate. He won most of his debates. He has a good business background. He hits his opposition hard and he raises a lot of money so he can do the same to Obama. Isn’t this what we want in a candidate?

That being said, her support for Freddie Mac Gingrich betrays her at the very least as not knowledgeable or cynical and her support for a brokered convention is clueless, unprincipled and impractical, as is her wish for the nominating process to go on.

The best interest of the GOP require that the nominating process end ASAP and the party rally around the one person with the education and work history needed to defeat Obama on the issue that concerns ordinary Americans more than any other issue: the economy.

Why are so many against a brokered convention? Perhaps we would get a much better candidate that way. I can support Romney – or Gingrich – but there’s no doubt that neither of them excite very many people these days. And at least in Romney’s case that isn’t going to change. He’s always going to be the lukewarm flavor that he is now.

You’re misreading him. It’s not that he wants Romney to move to the left. It’s that he doesn’t care. He simply doesn’t care who wins or what that person believes as long as it’s not Obama.

gryphon202 on February 12, 2012 at 8:57 PM

There should only be one objective–to defeat Obama and his socialist agenda. There is no Republican who would “move to the left.” That’s absurd. It’s simply not going to happen, given our candidates and given our party and given the makeup of the Congress and given the temper of the times. Some posters are inventing stuff out of thin air.

He’s a clean-living guy who’s smart and articulate. He won most of his debates. He has a good business background. He hits his opposition hard and he raises a lot of money so he can do the same to Obama. Isn’t this what we want in a candidate?

writeblock on February 12, 2012 at 11:32 PM

Well said, man, well said!

Right there I’m 90% sold. ABO! But 10% of me shivers in the dark hoping it works, because otherwise…

I swear, Palin haters think of politics as a freaking game in which the object is to get and hold political office for as long as possible.

Aitch748

As long as possible? How about just finishing your first term, lol?

if the GOP insists on nominating Romney they have pretty much admitted that I don’t matter except to get in line at vote time, and I don’t accept that.

alwaysfiredup

Well, you shouldn’t accept it because it’s not true. If Romney is the nominee, it won’t be the GOP nominating him, it will be Republican voter

Sarah Palin represents a clear and present danger to the entrenched powers that be. Hence she had to be marginalized from the outset, only the marginalization didn’t work out quite like they planned.

ariel

Yes, she’s going to take over the world one CPAC speech and one Fox News appearance at a time, lol.

If your conspiracy theory is true, I’d say the plan worked fine. 80% of her own party didn’t want her to run, and her political career is pretty much dead. Heck, I’d say it worked better than they ever imagined. But your conspiracy theory isn’t true. The reality is your silly story is nothing more than a case of tinfoil-inspired Palin Delusion Syndrome. She’s done, and most everyone knows it.

I do not blame Palin for resigning in the face of unwarranted ethics complaints which she was forced to defend at her own expense. Palin did the right thing for herself and her family by quitting.

Basilsbest

You know what the irony is? She’s the one who signed the law that made all that possible, lol.

I know a lot of people think the President has dictatorial powers, a belief easily confirmed by watching Obama. But he doesn’t.

Spending cuts will come through Congress if they are to come at all. Congress spends the money. There is not a Republican Presidential candidate who would veto his own party’s congressional budget, except perhaps Paul, who would be overridden in short order.

The President sets foreign policy, not domestic or budgetary policy which are reserved to Congress. Elect a good Congress and a Republican President will do the right thing.

The best interest of the GOP require that the nominating process end ASAP and the party rally around the one person with the education and work history needed to defeat Obama on the issue that concerns ordinary Americans more than any other issue: the economy.

Basilsbest on February 12, 2012 at 11:28 PM

Therein lies the rub. The best interests of the GOP does not overlap with the best interests of the conservatives, let alone the country. The GOP has betrayed us at every turn. Where’s that big cut in spending Boehner tearfully promised us? A fractional % cut in the baseline spending does nothing to cut our debt, it only postpones the due date. In fact, our deficit has grown another $2 trillion since that promise over a year ago. If that is the best he can do, then he needs to resign for incompetence. As a ‘leader” Nancy puts him to shame.

I completely understand that some people treat the two parties as some rival ball team and they only care that their partisan team wins. Unfortunately for you, you also need to understand some people also view politics as two rival teams, but the rivalry is not between Donks and GOP, rather between Govt and the people.

Just look at some of the people sent to DC under the TP banner and how they’re either marginalized or co-opted. This is to be expected, however, the only way the people can win in the long run is to relentlessly send people who respect and value the constitution and eventually, bit by bit move the Overton Window rightward. The fact that the old hands intend to fight and stay in office is the only justification for them to be primaried. The tree of liberty requires that all representatives and senators need to be replaced more often.

And it’s up to us to press that point that anyone, regardless of their “goodness” has a certain “replace by” date so that we can restock Congress with new fresh blood.

So yeah, If Mittness or some other CINO gets brokered in as the nominee, they can forget about my vote, cause I’ll be writing in a conservative at the top of my ballot. And if 30% of the voters join me, regardless of who they write-in, we will have started to apply the brakes on that giant millstone built upon progressive and compassionate conservative ideology.

If you now or have ever believed that the poorly qualified, unelectable, platitude spewing airhead drama queen that is Sarah Palin would make either a good candidate or President, you are completely clueless about politics.

How people like J.E Dyer,Tammy Bruce, Dana Loech, Mark Levin, etc are ever taken seriously is beyond comprehension. Or intelligence.